Saturday, December 21, 2013

Tucson Winter - Part A

Well, we left California on Thursday, October 24th at 8:45 a.m., crossed into the state of Arizona just before 1:00 p.m. and stopped for the night at Saddle Mountain RV Park near Tonopah AZ at 3:30 p.m. Yesterday, Friday, October 25th, we left Saddle Mountain at about 10:00 a.m. and pulled into Lazy Days RV Park in south Tucson at 1:30 p.m. Nice, short day! Time for a nice relaxing winter in our new "home"...

Here's our home on wheels on our site.

Well, can't start relaxing quite yet. After spending a few days settling in, on Wednesday, October 30th, we headed down to the airport and flew to San Antonio for John's VA physical on the 1st. During that week we enjoyed spending some time with John's cousin Judy and her husband Rick. In fact, they graciously let us stay with them! We always have a good time hanging out with them and, among other things, we all enjoyed a trip to Dripping Springs for a soup bowl fundraiser and also checked out the Wimberley flea market. Amazing place! Impossible to see it all in one day! On Wednesday, November 6th, we flew back to Tucson.

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Enjoyed all the fruit trees (grapefruit above) at Lazy Days...

After a few more weeks here, during which we lived our typical retiree life of visiting friends, going to an occasional movie, shopping, getting haircuts, doing laundry, etc. etc., I finally realized that - although John enjoyed it here, I was quite bored. So bored, in fact, that one afternoon I actually went around the park and knocked on the door of every rig that sported Alaska license plates and organized an informal "dessert" gathering at the park's restaurant that evening. We enjoyed visiting with about four other Alaskan couples. But, this park had no organized activities and one can only visit local friends so much before you become annoying! So, on Monday, November 25th, we spent the day touring three other RV parks, Rincon Country East, Voyager Resort, and Rincon Country West. RCW got our vote: plenty of activities and the RV section had plenty of palm trees and even had separate pet and non-pet sections. We don't have anything against pets but have to admit that it was nice not to listen to a barking dog right next door!

Rincon Country West's main street

So, on Sunday, December 1st, we pulled in the slide and drove the 10+ miles to Rincon Country West. Think we're going to like it here...

Me hanging out on "our" patio

On Wednesday, December 4th, we toured the Tucson Botanical Gardens. We always love tours and visits to gardens - so much to photograph! This one even had a butterfly house...

Atlas Moth

Barrel Cactus

Fairy Duster

Iris

The next weekend, brother Sam & wife MaryAnn were in town for a softball tourney. We went over to watch a game or two and then enjoyed a picnic dinner with them and the rest of the team at Voyager RV Resort.

Our 42nd anniversary arrived, so on Wednesday, December 11th we celebrated by driving down to Esplendor Resort in Rio Rico.

Our balcony view

Big thanks to Anchorage neighbor kid, Ryan, for passing along a gift certificate he and Louise were unable to use! We had a wonderful time!! After checking in we went over and played 9 holes of golf and then enjoyed a nice dinner down in their restaurant.

On Thursday, December 12th, after wandering around to see the resort grounds...

...we checked out and drove home by way of Patagonia where I became the proud owner of a third Native American flute! Fun!! Also, in Patagonia we wandered around a little town park that had some cool painted tiles. Couldn't resist playing with this photograph on the computer:

Original photograph

Version #1

Version #2

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Version #3

Pretty long horns!

Beautiful views along Hwy. 80, 82 or 83 -
not sure exactly where we were!